


things left unspoken

by naruhoe



Series: by your side (i’ll be there) [5]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Royal Spymaster Daud (Dishonored), and rulfio!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-31
Updated: 2019-01-31
Packaged: 2019-10-19 19:25:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17607473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naruhoe/pseuds/naruhoe
Summary: "I don't believe in true love." Corvo says thickly. His eyes are dark and liquid, and Daud can see his reflection in them, his ugly, scarred-up features peering curiously back at him. Corvo grimaces and takes another burning draught of the whiskey Daud had brought with him when he showed up at the Lord Protector's door. "Not anymore."(Spymaster!Daud AU)





	things left unspoken

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Несказанное](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17669354) by [Easy_Owl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Easy_Owl/pseuds/Easy_Owl)



"I don't believe in true love." Corvo says thickly. His eyes are dark and liquid, and Daud can see his reflection in them, his ugly, scarred-up features peering curiously back at him. Corvo grimaces and takes another burning draught of the whiskey Daud had brought with him when he showed up at the Lord Protector's door. "Not anymore."

Daud watches Corvo with a stilted kind of numbness, unable to look away from the turmoil in Corvo’s eyes even as his chest seizes with the words, a tight, clenching pain at the base of his throat that threatens to seize his voice in its grip. Whilst Corvo peers down into his glass, tipping it to the side to watch the amber liquid slosh up against the sides, Daud composes himself; focuses on easing the sudden tautness from his shoulders, but when he looks up again, Corvo's dark eyes are on him. He doesn't have to say the words. Daud can already hear them, spoken in the jagged tones of his previous confession. 

The assassin-turned-Spymaster (That's Daud, these days.) takes a bolstering sip of his own drink. It burns the back of his throat on the way down, warming him better than any pilfered kiss ever could have, an unspoken confession swallowed down to warm his belly. "That makes two of us, then." Daud says.

***

Daud's tongue is dry when he wakes the next morning to the amused face of his third in command. As it is, he shakes Rulfio's hand off of his arm and grumpily sits up- much too fast, he realizes, when his head throbs, fit to burst. Daud does what any civilized man would do, and drops his head into his hands as he curses a blue streak. 

"Sleep well?" Rulfio asks snidely. Daud spares him a _look_ , but his third is entirely unrepentant. At least he shuts up, though. For the moment.

Daud takes inventory. He's wearing his pants, at least, if not much else, and he appears to be in his quarters, which is odd. Between the initial memories of breaking open the bottle of “finely aged” Bottle Street, he fuzzily remembers dozing off on Corvo's couch near the end with the dense muscle of Corvo's side as his pillow. However, pure and unadulterated horror fills him as he remembers, with the force of a tidal wave smacking him upside the head, posing the question. And he remembers Corvo's answer.

_'I don't believe in true love. ' Says Corvo. At that moment, his eyes are so dark that they almost seem to absorb the light rather than reflect it. So dark, so deep, and rolling within with the power of his emotions, like the ocean, like waves crashing against a singular spire of rock. Too little, too late, Daud realizes that true love is a stupid topic, especially of **him** to bring up. 'Not anymore.' Corvo says. Jessamine. 'Jessamine', says the intense look in Corvo's eyes, the look he gets sometimes after he's been staring at Daud for a little too long, or when Daud finds him in that cursed little gazebo just outside of the castle. YoukilledherYoukilledherYoukilledherYou-_

"Sir?"

Rulfio is not smiling anymore. If anything, he looks a little wary. Daud checks the progress of the sun on the floor of his quarters from where it's been pouring in from the window. Damn. It's moved at least an inch, which means... "You looked like you'd seen a ghost." Rulfio prompts. Daud barks a bitter laugh, more reaction than actual reply. "That's one way to put it." He says grimly, and places two steadying hands on his knees as he rises from the luxurious softness that is his bed. He doesn't remember going back to his bed, last night.

Daud finds his shirt draped none-too-neatly over the back of one of the rickety wooden chairs, and his coat, sloppily folded in a parody of Daud's usual fastidiousness on the table next to it. Daud shrugs it on over the clean shirt he finds in the sparsely-populated wardrobe. He owns three shirts, now, and has become used to the luxury of wearing clean clothing through the week. As Daud splashes water across his face in the wash basin and gulps down what seems to be several pitchers of water, Rulfio stands by the balcony and just... watches.

By the time Daud is dressed, his features are impeccably composed, and he greets Rulfio with a sharp nod that the other returns a little uncertainly. "Report." Rulfio rattles off the report, gaining a little more of his charm back as he talks, and talks. Daud allows him that before he waves a hand to cut it off. "Enough. Is Thomas back?"

Rulfio nods. "Good." Daud says, striding to the door as he ignores the sharp, leftover pains in his head, though the worst of the hangover has passed, now. "Have him meet me by the waterlock in an hour." Rulfio looks quizzical. "An hour, sir?" He echoes, sounding insufferably curious as he closes the door behind the two of them.

"I have somewhere to be, this morning." Daud says shortly.

***

Flowers bloom on all sides of the gazebo. The roses are in season, and many have unfurled their petals in response to the new warmth that comes with the arrival of the Month of Earth, red, and yellow, and white, all perfectly trimmed by the efforts of the groundskeepers Daud doesn't entirely trust, on the basis that they don't have a set schedule and know entirely too many ways in and out of the Castle. The gazebo, however, is beautiful, and its white marble floor is strewn with cut flowers. Daud ponders their significance.

'In memory of Her Majesty, Jessamine Kaldwin.' Reads the epitaph. 'Mother to Emily. Empress to us all.'

Daud stands, arms crossed, looking down at the marble headstone. Here, a year ago, was where he had thought to lay down his sword. And yet, since then, he has killed again. Blood stains his hands now as surely as it did the marble he currently stands on. The only difference (if there is a difference) is the one whose name he did it in, yet he questions himself. He questions the exhilaration he felt (and _feels_ ) when his blade punched wetly through flesh and bone, questions the curious look in Emily's eye when she regards him. He questions himself now, standing at the grave of the Empress he cut down as surely as any of these flowers below his feet. And Corvo, and the look in his eyes as he spoke those four, damning syllables: 'Not anymore.'

No, Daud decides. If he were Corvo, he would not believe in true love either. The problem is that he is Daud, and that he loves that which he can never hope to deserve.

**Author's Note:**

> One step forward, two steps back. This turned out sadder than I had intended. Comments and kudos are appreciated!


End file.
